Without Light
by Alexa Bleach
Summary: Fifty stories exploring the characters and settings of Eternal Darkness.
1. Forget

**ONE — FORGET**

"You know what I want?" Peter said, leaning closer.

_He visits too often,_ Edward thought, mind already drifting. He was more than happy to take the Ancient's essence from Peter, but not quite as pleased to listen to the man's babbling. _After seventy years of that thing corroding your thoughts, eating at your dreams, you'd be babbling too._

"I want to forget. I want to have Alzheimer's. I want to forget everything. I want to know nothing," Peter said earnestly. "If I knew nothing, I'd be safe. And I wouldn't— wouldn't have the dreams."

"Even if it means forgetting your wife and your children?" Edward said, slipping easily into inquisitor-mode._ Psychologists never really leave the office._ "Photography, woodworking— you would forget everything, even the things you love?"

"It's worth it to forget those things," Peter said eagerly, "if I can forget everything I ever knew about the darkness. And don't tell me you wouldn't as well. Don't tell me you wouldn't give it all up if you could forget what you know, the abominations you've seen. If you could live in blissful peace, unaware of what was going to happen or what had already happened—"

_No,_ Edward thinks, _no, that's where you're wrong. I'm stronger than that. I'm a Roivas; the Roivas never give up. I would— I will— fight the darkness until the day I die, until Pious finally pries the last breath from my cooling body. And I would never trade what I have_

_(Alex in her summer dress, jam smeared over her crooked teeth)_

_could never trade what I have to forget the darkness. I'll carry the atrocities and bear the burden of fighting the good fight if it means I can keep the few, thin, bright moments._

But Edward says none of this, because the darkest, most deviant, most despicable part of his mind whispers cunningly, _But if you remember nothing, you'll never know what you're giving up._

**Author's Note:**

I like to think that Peter and Edward are bropals, and that they hang out and drink port in Edward's library on weekends when Peter can get a pass from the nursing home. First prompt out of fifty, list made for me by TheMagicPocketTurtle. Go read her fifty-theme list.


	2. Break

**TWO — BREAK**

Break first, fix later— that was his way, had always been his way. He didn't know how to be any other way.

He used to break for fun, on a lark. _How many could he break in a night?_ His record was ten, and he was a legend in the slums. Sometimes he'd spot an easy one, arms outstretched, leaning on one leg. Perfect. _They must make these for me. _He'd recruit some urchins to provide a distraction (they were usually more than willing to help the slum's legendary Pious, destroyer of the wealthy) and then hack at the statue (usually some frog-faced senator) until it collapsed into a pile of rubble and dust.

He was never caught, but the city guards all knew it was him. It almost prevented him from rising to centurion, but his valor on the battlefield was unquestionable. He could still remember smirking at them, thinking, _I've got the best of you. You'll never catch me, and you'll never stop me._

So when he broke that statue, it meant nothing to him. He'd broken a thousand before, he'd break a thousand more. _Doesn't matter, stone is just the brittle flesh of crooked-nosed senators and their warty wives._

Except that this time, this statue, the flesh was his own.

**Author's Note:**

Poor Pious. He had a funny name, so the slum children must have tormented him mercilessly. Why do I bother to research these little fics? I don't know. Second prompt out of fifty, list made for me by TheMagicPocketTurtle. Go read her fifty-theme list.


	3. Swing

**THREE — SWING**

_If I jump off the swing,_ Alex thought, _I can fly like Captain Planet._ It made complete, total, absolute, perfect logical sense– until she was sprawled across the back lawn weeping.

"Grandfather!" she cried, neck yearning forward, trying to drag herself up. Her leg hurt, on fire, hurt worse than a beesting, worse than a lost tooth, worse than a paper cut. It felt like something was disjointed, unright, pushed out of shape.

When he heard her pained yelp, he dropped his pruning shears and raced around the corner of the house to the back yard where she was swinging on the old twisted oak. "Alex—"

She lay in a little twisted pile, dirt streaking her face and sticking to her tears. Her leg bent behind her at an angle that his few, brief years of medical school told him was impossible. All of this he took in a glance, his mind roaring with panic, utter, witless, panic—

_What to do? She's hurt_

_—your little Alex, crying and hurt, bleeding_

_(and what if she's broken something what if she dies what if she dies how could you you you **failed**)_

_(you can't let the line die out)_

He didn't think so much as _react_, laying his hand on her, "Narokath, Santak, Chattur'gha!" The three runes flickered into view (_God, how he hated them, how he wanted never to see them again— and yet, perversely, nothing right now could have filled him with more joy_) followed by unholy red light and that voice, that grinding voice.

"Grandfather, w-what's– what did you do?"

"Hush, Alex," he said, and stroked her hair, panic still coursing through his veins. _It's all right_, he told himself. _She's safe now. As if she could have died from a broken leg. You're getting more foolish every day, old man. She's safe._ He knew that was a lie, though. She would never be safe again, not after she had been touched by them. _As if she could avoid it; she's your get, your whelp, your progeny— how could she have escaped their taint?_

"Alex," he said, lifting her to her feet. "You must never speak of that. Don't ever— never speak of that. Forget it happened."

She looked up at him, puzzled. "Was it mag—"

"No," he said, more sharply than he intended. "Magic isn't real, Alex."

**Author's Note:**

Alex watched Captain Planet FO SHO. Third prompt out of fifty, list made for me by TheMagicPocketTurtle. Go read her fifty-theme list.


	4. Fall

**FOUR — FALL**

Falling into that hole was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Michael was used to taking risks, used to putting his life on the line for hours or days— but there was always a reprieve afterward. A rest, a dulling down, a calm period after walking a constant edge between safety and hazard.

There was nothing like that after he crawled out of that hole.

_It's funny,_ he thought, walking down Riverline toward Brewster, where he would meet the old man. _Escaping the temple was the most dangerous thing I've ever done. If I die..._

He lingered over that thought, tempted, and pushed it away. _Too much to do,_ he thought. _And I'm too stubborn to give up._ He had to keep believing that, or one day he might just stop trying– stop fighting, stop caring.

_Why did I have to fall down that hole?_ he thought bitterly, resettling the package he carried. _Why couldn't it have been someone else?_ But try as he might, he couldn't think of one person he would wish this on.

**Author's Note:**

Had so much trouble with this prompt. Clearly not my best work. Fourth prompt out of fifty, list made for me by TheMagicPocketTurtle. Go read her fifty-theme list.


	5. Hold

**FIVE — HOLD**

The whole length of him burned for her, ached to hold her. It was the middle of the night, as always, when the longing shook him. "_Chandra_," he sighed, half a prayer.

He'd first seen her from the market, a rooftop lady confined to a garden. _Gilded bars are still bars._ At first, the glimpse was nothing beyond ordinary. It was only later the burning took him, when he lay alone in the darkness. _I see women all the time,_ he thought, disgusted with his infatuation. _Women washing clothes, women buying jewels, women carrying babes— women, everywhere, all the time. Why should one woman– who I couldn't even see properly– twist my heart so?_

But twist it she did, into little wrinkled knots, until he was certain, completely and totally, that he would do _anything_ to have her.

**Author's Note:**

Quality decreases with quantity. Fifth prompt out of fifty, list made for me by TheMagicPocketTurtle. Go read her fifty-theme list.


End file.
